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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for collecting daily manna), make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Saturday, February 3, 2018
Today's Passage : Today's Passage: Subjecta:Israel Asks for a King Bible Verse:1 Samuel 8:1-9 (ESV) "When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” This displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”" Message:
Like Eli before him, Samuel has sons who do not share his devotion and dedication, but abuse their position. The Hebrew nation has become prosperous and stable under Samuel's tenure as judge, as the Philistines have been chastened and Israel has been at peace, both internally and externally—a good recipe for prosperity.
Secular political science asserts that a monarchy is a step forward in the evolution of a nation; certainly the concentration of power in the hands of a monarch can be helpful in times of war—depending, of course, on who the king is. Samuel took the request badly, seeing it as a personal rejection, and the passage likens this to the times when Israel strayed from its devotion to God and worshipping Ba’al, Astarte, and other foreign gods. Now they want a foreign form of government.
Of course, a king with bad sons is even worse than a judge with bad sons, since the sons of a hereditary monarch have more power and are harder to dislodge: but the Hebrew people, having never had a king, don’t grasp the downside of it. In the next chapter, Samuel will warn them.
There is a bigger issue, however, than the temporal problem of a bad king. The overarching principle stated in this passage is not that Samuel, or his sons, or a form of government is rejected. The real issue is that God takes it personally! “[I]t is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”
Looking at it another way, the Hebrew mistake is to seek a government “such as all the other nations have,” when God has set the Hebrew nation apart and commanded them to reject the teachings of other nations. The ancient Egyptians conceived of their king as the ka, the “vital force” or soul of the entire people. But God has created a direct relationship with the Hebrews. No earthly power may stand between them and God Himself.
We make the same mistake, today and throughout history, when we look to a civil government as the source of our hope. God would eventually send us a human king: Jesus Christ. We are commanded to subject ourselves to the civil authorities under the new covenant of Christ; but our one true “government” is a monarchy, and we have only one King, the resurrected Christ.
Meditation : Prayer : Lord, in utter humility I thank you and glorify you, that you might hear the prayer of one so small as myself, amidst the billions of souls among billions of stars in one of billions of galaxies in your universe. Let me go forth in your peace, keeping your Spirit always in my mind; and bless me, I pray, that I might always follow your will and live in the radiance of your blessing.....Amen. |
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